The comfort of darkness
by Sairs J
Summary: Darkness is a safe haven.


_Spoilers: Up to and including Scar_

_Disclaimers: I don't own the characters I've just borrowed them for a little adventure and then I promise to return them!_

_Summary – Darkness is a safe haven._

* * *

As the darkness embraces me it gives me comfort and protection from the pain of my life, the fear of my reality. The darkness is the one place that I truly feel safe. In the darkness I can hide, when I am here no one can find me or hurt me anymore.

The darkness is my comfort.

* * *

The sound of the door slamming reverberated through the silence of the house and wrenched Kara from her slumber.

She sat upright in her bed and waited. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, her small hands shaking against the comforter.

Her mother's voice called to her, her voice slurred with alcohol, "Kara, mommy's home." Kara flinched; her mother was drunk and looking for someone to vent her anger on.

Kara sprung from her bed and hoisted herself onto the ledge of her bedroom window; silently she opened it and climbed out onto the porch roof. She closed the window behind her and crawled to the edge of the porch, carefully she lowered herself to the ground, the soft grass cushioning her fall.

She quickly stood and pushed her small frame against the side of the house, using the shadows to keep her hidden from her mother. She crept slowly towards the basement door, choosing her steps carefully, ensuring that she didn't make a sound. If she did her mother would hear her and then she would have to pay the consequences. Consequences she didn't want to face.

At last she reached the basement door and cautiously opened it, knowing how far to move it before its hinges began to groan at the movement. She squeezed through the gap and lowered herself into the basement, silently closing the door behind her.

She tiptoed through the darkness to the covered pool table that was hidden in the corner of the room. She pulled back the blanket and crawled underneath the table, releasing the blanket as she crawled to the wall, placed her back against it and pulled her knees tightly against her chest. She slowly began to rock in an attempt to comfort herself from the nightmare of her reality.

A loud crash from the floor above her caused Kara to jump with shock. Her mother was getting angrier. Kara imagined her pushing over the tables and chairs as her fury rose. She knew that if her mother found her she would suffer.

Kara flexed her fingers, remembering the sound as her mother had broken them in a fit of anger. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek as the memory surfaced.

She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer to the Gods for her father to return home and rescue her, to take her away from the pain of her mother's drinking. She sighed, he wouldn't be coming back, she realised it was nothing more than a dream.

Footsteps on the basement steps caused the bile in her stomach to rise, burning her throat as she desperately swallowed it back. She pressed herself back into the wall as far as she could, and wished that her body could melt into the wall.

She held her breath as her mother's shadow peeked under the blanket that was covering her hiding spot. She winced as her mother's fingers grasped the edge of the blanket.

Time seemed to stand still as Kara's eyes were riveted to her mother's fingers, watching as they began to lift the blanket.

The sound of the telephone ringing caused her mother's hand to stop in its tracks, she released the blanket and it fell silently back into place. Her mother's unsteady footfalls climbed the stairs. Kara heard the click of the light switch as the basement was plunged into the comfort of darkness.

Kara allowed herself to relax as she heard her mother's footsteps head towards the front door, and she collapsed against the cold concrete floor at the sound of the front door slamming. She lay down on her side and pulled her knees to her chest and imagined herself in a place far away from home, a place where she would never feel the anger of her mother, a place where she could finally be safe.

* * *

The darkness of the basement had become her sanctuary; it was the place she ran to when she needed to hide from her mother. Other children at school had talked about being afraid of the darkness, but Kara was never afraid of the dark, it offered her release from the nightmare her childhood had become.

At night when her mother was out she would sometimes sit on her windowsill and look into the darkness of the night sky, she was amazed by the stars that twinkled, little diamonds that beckoned to her. As she sat there she imagined flying away into the comfort of the darkness and never looking back. She made herself a promise, when she was old enough she was going to enlist and fly away from her mother. The darkness was her future.

* * *

Kara Thrace woke with a start as her childhood memories flooded her dreams, she shivered as the remnants of her dream began to dissipate from her mind. She quietly pulled back the blanket from her bunk and slid her feet into her running shoes, running was the only way she could push the demons from her dreams out of her mind. Quietly she picked up her tanks from the bottom of her bunk and slipped them over her head, and then she pulled back the curtain, silently stood and quietly opened the hatch.

She ran along the deserted corridors of the Galactica, her mind working through the last few days, the Cylons had barely given them a chance to recover before they sent their next wave of raiders to attack the fleet. Kara thought back to the pilots they'd lost.

As her feet pounded on the metal deck, faces and names of her fallen comrades flowed into her mind. She had lied to Lee when she had said she couldn't remember their names. Her problem was that she could remember them and she felt guilty. Guilty that she was still alive.

Why had the Gods decided to save her? She asked herself quietly. They must be punishing her for her past, making her suffer this existence. Existence. That was what her life had become, existing from one moment to the next, she wasn't living and she was pretty sure that most of her colleagues were only existing too.

She stopped by a door, she opened it and crept inside, she glanced around the room, and it was deserted, well at 0200 only those on night shift would be around. She walked over to the small window and perched on the edge of the sill and looked out at the stars. Their small bright lights, glinting in the darkness were the only light source in the room. She often came here at night, when the nightmares became too much.

She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and thought of Jumping Jack, he'd bought it in the latest Cylon attack, and he'd been one of her second class of nuggets. She thought of the look on his wife's face as she delivered the news that he'd died in battle.

Kara shivered as she remembered the guttural scream that left the woman's throat as the news registered. The woman had clung onto the doorframe of her quarters for support as her world was slowly crashing around her. She also remembered the small hand appearing from behind the woman, grasping at the woman's skirt.

The hand belonged to Jumping Jack's son, "What's wrong, Mommy?" he had asked quietly.

His mother pulled him into her embrace, rocking him gently in her arms and she began to whisper into her son's hair, Kara assumed they were words of comfort.

Kara had backed away, leaving the woman and her son to their grief; she knew that the image would haunt her for as long as she lived.

As she walked away she angrily wiped at her eyes, removing any trace of the tears that had threatened to fall. That had been one of the hardest conversations she had ever had to have and she hoped that she never had another conversation like it again, however, in their current situation, chances were she probably would.

That was one very good reason for just existing, not building friendships with others, because as soon as you let them in you were vulnerable. Vulnerable to the pain of loss.

It was better to keep everything on a professional level, sharing the odd game of Triad or joke, but keeping everyone at arm's length; because once the world had ended the rules of life had changed.

She rested her head against the wall of the porthole and let her mind wander to the one person she had let in. The one person who had the power to break her heart with a phrase or even a simple look.

He was the one person who had chipped through her armour and had captured her heart and that thought scared her to death. She hadn't intended on letting it happen and now there was nothing she could do except push him away.

She would never be good enough for him, she would only hurt him, and just like everyone she had allowed herself to care for in the past. They had either died or ran away and she would not be responsible for killing him. She had killed one man through the blinkers of love and there would be no way she would kill another.

She shivered at the thought of their drunken encounter earlier. The need to feel human contact, the need for a few minutes release from the pain of this existence, but stupidly she had chosen the one man who could change everything she believed in. It was her biggest mistake to date.

Not only had she blown the one opportunity to experience what she had spent years dreaming about as a child, the dream of a future with someone she loved and who also loved her. She had also probably fraked up one of the relationships she treasured, and she knew she had hurt her best friend.

"There is no us!" That was the statement she had thrown at him during their tryst and it haunted her in the darkness.

The problem was that she had lied to his face, there definitely was an us and that thought petrified her. She had never felt for Zack what she felt for him. She needed to protect herself and to protect him, so what did she do? She did what she did best; she pushed him away and went into hiding.

She glanced at her watch, 0430, she was scheduled for CAP at 0600, and she needed to return to her quarters, shower, and change, eat and begin another day.

Another day towards what? She asked herself as she stood, glancing at the stars once more.

A bright shiny future?

Not her, not Kara Thrace. She was never destined to be any more than a major frak up. You only needed to read her service file to see how much of a frak up she was. She would never change and she didn't want to change. The way she participated in her life worked for her. Why fix something that wasn't broken, she thought as she walked towards the hatch. Leaving the safety of the darkness and heading back into the light and the pain that came with it.

As she stepped into the corridor, Lee's words echoed in her mind, "You're fine with the dead guys; it's the living ones you can't deal with." She agreed with his statement, at least the dead guys were dead; they couldn't die and leave her again, swimming in the pool of pain that accompanied the loss of someone you loved.

As she walked down the corridor she thought about how no one on Galactica would ever find the true Kara Thrace, she was a little girl who never had the opportunity to be loved or nurtured, and she was the scared little girl, who hid under the pool table in the basement. That was the secret she kept locked inside, the secret she would take with her when her luck finally gave out and she died in the darkness of space. But the child that she kept a secret from everyone had developed the skill of building barriers to protect her heart, barriers that had worked her entire life and she had no intention of ever letting them down again.

She would continue to exist, to fight and to survive, but she wouldn't live, not until finally she could feel safe in the light.

* * *

The End 


End file.
